Discount Airline Travellers to Pay No Booking Surcharge

Sydney, Australia, November 18, 2007 --(PR.com)-- Whether choosing to travel overseas or domestically, Australians can now pay for their air travel and accommodation online without using their credit card, thus avoiding the credit card surcharge.

Direct Flights International is the first travel website to add POLi to their payment choices, enabling travellers to buy their discounted tickets online using their bank account. Direct Flights will not surcharge customers who pay for flights and accommodation using POLi, and travellers can use this payment system to purchase all manner of travel products, including discount airfare, car hire, hotels, destination activities, and travel insurance.

Nay Phu Tran, CEO of Direct Flights International said “at Direct Flights our philosophy is to listen to our customers. Many don’t have credit cards and others are unhappy with paying a surcharge. They want to take advantage of our cheap airfares, and discount travel packages, but often have issues with the forms of payment traditionally taken online. Through POLi, we give our customers the convenience of an instantaneous, online payment method, with no surcharge.”

Simon Warner, managing director of Centricom, the supplier of POLi, agreed. “POLi is like having eftpos online and Direct Flight customers will incur no surcharge if they choose to pay with POLi. It’s a convenient extension of a person’s internet banking facility, so its using all the existing security measures in place.”

The online credit card surcharge for a domestic return flight is typically $4 per passenger for Virgin Blue and $4.40 for Qantas and $8 for a Virgin Blue international trip and $12 for a Qantas international trip. Other carriers and travel agents will charge up to 3% of the total cost for international flights to recoup their fees to the credit card company. Using POLi, Direct Flights charges it’s customers no additional costs.

Using POLi to purchase discounted airfare and other travel products on Direct Flights is simple. To pay for their booked flights, customers choose the POLi option and their standard Internet banking site will come up in a new window. They then simply login as they normally do and a ‘Pay Anyone’ page shows Direct Flights’ bank details and the amount payable. Finally, the customer clicks to confirm and the bank session is closed and the purchase is confirmed with a printable receipt available on the Direct Flight site. The customer’s flight is booked in real-time just like if they had used a card.

Direct Flights International is an online travel authority that was established in 1990 and over the last 17 years has developed into one of the most well respected travel wholesalers across Australia, combining award-winning dynamic technology, outstanding customer service, and providing unbelievable prices from over 40 air carriers worldwide, and literally thousands of hoteliers across the globe.

Their award winning site allows customers to book not only flights and cruises, accommodation, and car hire, but also provides heaps of information for great destination activities and allows people to book a space online.

In addition to offering customers an incredible travel experience, Direct Flights is continuously striving to make financing travel as convenient and easy as possible, and has developed invaluable relationships with several financial groups to offer an unprecedented array of convenient on and offline payment solutions.

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